The Power of Poetry

Between these poems, "To His Coy Mistress" and "You, Andrew Marvell", and this essay by Mark Strand the most intriguing part is the in depth meaning behind both poems. In the essay by Mark Strand, he alludes to his childhood and the connection he felt with "You, Andrew Marvell" as one of the first poems he read. "I didn't know who Andrew Marvell was, nor did I know where half of the places were that MacLeish mentions. I only knew - what was most important for me then - that I was the figure 'face down beneath the sun.'" As a reader, I read the poem first before the essay and I also felt a similar connection as the person "face down beneath the sun" watching the world continue and all experience the same notion of night or death. Even though "To His Coy Mistress" is partially about sex and the abounding beauty of women, but it also talks about the beauty is only there for a short period of time "Time's winged chariot hurrying near;". Both poems talk about how the world is continuous and how no single purpose or reason would stop time eternally and how all things must fade eventually even though one is talking about different places around the world ("You, Andrew Marvell") and one is talking about not wasting beauty and having sex now... why wait? everything dies in the end ("To His Coy Mistress"). I feel a connection to "You, Andrew Marvell" because its true how events in life and places come and go like the motion of tides, and this poem, although on my first read, I was a little swept away in the places and trying to imagine them, I understand now how the poem is connected and is circular just like time and the earth. 

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